Curl up with your favorite horror movie, game, or book, and pay close attention; beyond the screams and the blood there is a whole culture hiding.

Western audiences often experience long-distance culture shock when faced with media created by the Japanese for the Japanese. Despite efforts to tailor Japanese works for the American market, we are often confronted with cultural signals that are uniquely Japanese and have no direct equivalent Western culture. This has lead to a lot of head-scratching on this side of the Pacific, and has given rise to the internet stereotype that the Japanese must be insane. This incomprehensibility has kept some forms of Japanese pop culture from gaining traction with with mainstream Western audiences.

Western audiences have sparked a renewed interest in foreign movies and horror in general. Japanese literature like Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" is starting to gain a solid readership in the West (though still only a very select group of authors are available in translation), and horrific video games of Japanese origin such as Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, and Resident Evil are consistently popular. It seems that Japanese horror has successfully avoided the mire of culture clash and has made a significant impact on mainstream Western society.

So let us take a look at how contemporary Japanese horror differs dramatically from American contemporary horror. As an American, I have often been struck by the unconventional presentation of Japanese horror films and games. Over the last thirty years American horror film has become increasingly action-oriented; we are often treated to shoot outs, fights, and scenes of monsters mauling victims. Japanese film, on the other hand, has remained mostly understated, relying primarily on mood and pacing rather than blood and guts to achieve scares. Horror author Koji Suzuki points out that unlike most American horror cinema, many Japanese stories do not end in the destruction of the antagonist.

So what is it about Japanese horror that we find so attractive? What has kept it comprehensible and accessible to mainstream Western audiences? What is with all the freaky women wearing white with their hair covering their face? In this article, I will attempt to explain how Japanese horror works within the context of Japanese culture and how this approach is differs from the type of horror that Americans are used to.